Tea party group chief quits, cites internal split

WASHINGTON — Eased out with an $8 million payout provided by an influential Republican fundraiser, former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey said he has left the conservative tea party group FreedomWorks because of an internal split over the group’s direction.

A confidential contract obtained by The Associated Press shows that Armey agreed in September to resign from his role as chairman of Washington-based FreedomWorks in exchange for $8 million in consulting fees paid in annual $400,000 installments. Dated Sept. 24, the contract specifies that Armey would resign his position at both FreedomWorks and its sister organization, the FreedomWorks Foundation, by the end of November.

According to the contract, Armey’s consulting fees will be paid by Richard J. Stephenson, a prominent fundraiser and founder and chairman of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, a national cancer treatment network. Stephenson is on the board of directors of FreedomWorks.

Armey’s exit comes as a new sign of acrimony in conservative and Republican ranks as the party’s bruised leadership struggles with its November electoral losses and uncertainty over how to recast its principles and issues to compete with an ascendant Democratic Party.

Armey confirmed his departure Tuesday, saying “my differences with FreedomWorks are a matter of principle.” Armey said he made the decision to quit FreedomWorks in August, but Stephenson and other board members urged him not to leave until after the Nov. 6 election. Stephenson did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

Armey would not describe his specific concerns, but he told Mother Jones magazine that the tea party group was moving in an unproductive direction. He also indicated dissatisfaction with the November election results, in which several GOP candidates supported by FreedomWorks Super PAC donations were beaten by Democratic Party rivals.

In an internal Nov. 30 resignation memo published by Mother Jones, Armey told FreedomWorks CEO Matt Kibbe to remove his “name, image and signature” from all the group’s materials and Web operations. Kibbe and other FreedomWorks officials were not immediately available for comment.

Armey, who had been with the group since its 2004 founding, is a veteran Texas Republican Party political figure who was intimately involved in the GOP’s conservative “Contract with America” congressional movement in the 1990s. While Armey, 72, was Freedom- Works’ co-chairman and intellectual authority and at first, its public face, the younger Kibbe has been its most active official, appearing at the group’s public gatherings.

FreedomWorks flourished after a wave of tea party House candidates swept into office in 2010, but despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to back favored GOP candidates in November, the group’s influence appeared to wane at the polls. Among the GOP losers supported by FreedomWorks in November were Senate candidates Josh Mandel in Ohio, Connie Mack in Florida and Richard Mourdock in Indiana.